Vanderbilt University announced yesterday it will make an institution-wide foray into offering worldwide, free, digital courses by some of its leading faculty members through Coursera. Coursera first began offering courses from partner universities in April 2012 and has since enrolled more than 1.3 million students worldwide.

Coursera, Inc., is an online platform for open-access, non-credit classes, available at no cost to participants. Such courses are commonly known as MOOCs, or massively open online courses. An independent company dedicated to working with high-quality university partners, Coursera was developed at Stanford University in fall of 2011 by computer science professors Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng.

“I think the quality and diversity of my class material will benefit from my participation with Coursera, as I alter it in response to questions from Coursera students, who have a broad range of backgrounds and perspectives,” Schmidt said. “The ability to draw upon a digital archive of my lectures will also help me tailor class materials to the particular interests and needs of my Vanderbilt students.”

For more information about digital learning initiatives at Vanderbilt, visit vanderbilt.edu/digital-learning. For more information about Coursera, including a full list of participating institutions and courses, visit coursera.org.